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Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Delicious Pumpkin Pie

Delicious Pumpkin Pie

This is for the Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #12, If They Had It... "Have you ever looked through a cookbook from another
era and been surprised at the modern dishes you find? Have you ever been
surprised at just how much they differ from their modern counterparts?
Recreate a dish which is still around today, even if it may look a
little - or a lot - different!"

Really I was just making a pie for my father. Our Halloween pumpkins are nearing the end of their edible stage & so I have to start cutting & boiling & freezing. So I figured, why not make that pie he's been pining for & knock off a challenge as well? I also used it as an excuse to try yet another pie crust as my go-to is a thing of the past since no one on earth makes a shortening without palm or coconut oil anymore. I love pie, but I'm not going to die for it. Let me just say, this crust was not the new It.

Both of these came from Buckeye Cookery 1877 (yeah, I know, yawn... but the recipes taste good... I just had my first flop today for Pete's sake!).

DELICIOUS PUMPKIN PIE.

Cut a pumpkin into thin
slices, and boil until tender in as little water as possible, watching
carefully that it does not scorch; set the stew-kettle on top of stove, mash
the pumpkin fine, heaping it against the sides of the kettle so that the water
may drain from it and dry away; repeat this process until the water has all
evaporated, and the pumpkin is quite dry. This will require from half an
hour to an hour. Mash and rub through a sieve, adding, while warm, a good-sized
lump of butter; to every quart of pumpkin, after it is mashed, add two quarts
of milk and six eggs, the yolks and whites beaten separately, sugar to taste,
one tea-spoon salt, table-spoon ground cinnamon, one grated nutmeg, tea-spoon
ginger; bake in a hot oven until well set and a nice brown. It is as well to
heat the batter scalding hot, stirring constantly until it is poured into the
pie-dishes.--Mrs. Gov. Irwin, California.

AUNTY PHELPS' PIE CRUST.

To one pint of sifted flour, add one even tea-spoon
baking powder, and sweet cream enough to wet the flour, leaving crust a little
stiff. This is enough for two pies.

Please note that pumpkin is yellow-orange not deep orange.

The Delicious Pumpkin Pie... oh yes, yes it is! I made a 1/2 recipe based on my tiny stew pumpkin, so it looks like this:
2 c. pumpkin
4 c. milk (I ended up using 2 cups of organic almond milk, so we got vanilla even though the recipe doesn't call for it, and the 2 cups were because I was nearly out & the kid NEEDS his ah-ma milck!!!! PEESCHE!!!)
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger

- First you have to cut up the pumpkin, so get choppin! I just took the stem out & sliced it like a melon, then cut the guts off the slices vs. scooping. I reserved the seeds to roast tomorrow. Chunk it. Cut the skin off.
- I put it in a steamer first, then decided to follow the directions and boil it... When I do this again, I'll just steam it so I don't have to swear after the next step.
- Mash it.

Reduce the liquid in the pumpkin mash.

- (here is where steaming would have saved me some agony) Boil off all that excess water. Oops. Anyway, that took
nearly 2 hours all told. 45 minutes at first when I thought it was
done. Then...
- Run it through the food mill.
- Reboil it to really get rid of all that excess water.
- Add 1-2 tbsp of butter while the pumpkin is hot.
- Mix dry ingredients together & set aside.
- Separate egg yolks from whites and beat both separately.
- Add milk to pumpkin mix & stir.
- Beat in beaten yolks & whites (ha).
- Add dry ingredients.

Now, go ahead & pre-heat your oven to 375F
- Put the whole pumpkin mixture into a large sauce pan & simmer it on LOW, stirring occasionally to scald the milk. Don't cook it on high.

Crust:
(This was a total flop. It makes good crackers.)
I thought 4 cups would be too much, but it's really a comfortable amount for a nice, thick crust. This is the recipe for the "by the skin of your teeth for 2 9" pies."
3 c. flour, sifted.
3/4 tsp baking powder
10 tbsp milk (almond milk) added slowly.

Let's just call this Leather Crust

Now, pour the filling into the pie shells (having the foresight to use a different recipe than the one listed above), and bake on 375 for 45-55 minutes. Some people bake it on 425 for 15 minutes & then turn it down to 375 for the remainder of the time, but I think cooking it on the stove first accomplishes that.

The crust shrank & pulled away from the edge of the dish.
It also slides around and is as hard as shoe leather.
Aunty Phelps was a bad pastry maker.

Time: All flippin' day. Not even kidding. I cut the pumpkin at 10:00 this morning and the pies came out of the oven at 4:15. A lot of that time was just 'set the timer' and do something else, but this was not Libby's pumpkin from a can. I still haven't managed the dishes.Cost: Probably less than $5. It was a $2 pumpkin and about $3 for everything else that I had on hand (rough estimate for eggs, flour, almond milk, spices & sugar)How Accurate was it? So-so. I substituted cow milk for Wegmans Organic Almond Milk, which has a lot more than just almonds in it, so that trashed the purely historic flavor, but saved my son's tummy. I used the typical modern cooking equipment, but used the right hand tools. Next time I'll steam the pumpkin to save on time in reducing water.Results: The filling is excellent. We all like it. It has a cleaner flavor than the typical canned pumpkin and separating the yolks from the whites and beating them separately gave it a lighter texture than just beating everything together all at once. Pre-heating the filling on the stove is brilliant.
The crust was blah. I mean, really, really blah. Also tough as linoleum. But I guess you'll never know unless you try.